Verona Shriley Perrins

 Mother is sixteen years old in this picture.  I have looked at this picture a hundred times thinking "and she's only sixteen going on twenty-five."  Vern and Verona, what are the chances of two young people falling in love, living in a small town and their first names start with a V.

Mother loved to play basketball and yes, she is the one on the right top end wearing a necklace!
Mother always looked her best!  On the bottom row third from the  left is her sister Kerma.
Mother loved to remind me what a fast runner she was.  At a 4th of July celebration in Oakley (Idaho) she entered in as many foot races as she could winning them all and they politely asked her not to come back

I love this picture for the natural beauty of it.
In the background - the hills of Albion.

  Mother not only played basketball but, was a cheerleader.  She was president of her Sophomore class.

Verona graduated from Albion High School in 1932 and unlike her older brothers and sisters did not want to attend the Albion Normal School to  become a teacher so she went to Deer Park, Washington to live with her brother Melvin and his wife Ressa through the winter of '32, '33.    I believe she is holding the hand of her niece Mary Lou, oldest daughter of Melvin and Ressa.    This would be the first time ever to be away from home and she was VERY  home sick.

To keep her busy and her mind off being so homesick, her brother Melvin volunteered her to coach the girls basketball team.  Melvin Perrins taught school in Deer Park and coached every boys  sport that was offered!  Can you pick her out?

She returned to Albion in the Spring of 1933 and decided to attend Albion Normal School after all and  hated every minute of it.

This picture was taken on 28 October 1933
on the wedding day of her friend Margaret Bauman to Laurence Leroy Henry.
What's so special about this picture is that I have the dress she is wearing.  It was a prom dress she had, light green in color very thin material.
Mother came from poor circumstances but, she always could 'pull it off'.
 

Mother died 10 March 2006, age 91.  She always thought she would die in her 70's like her mother Edna.  (She was 70)  And that's why living over twenty years longer was so surprising to her.  When she was 87 years old  I asked her this question:  If you could go back in a time of your life where would it be?  Without hesitation she said;  "To be 16, riding a horse on a spring day, in the field behind my house! "  I thought about this answer a lot.   Of course, that was a time in her life when her body was active, she loved Albion High School, she was the class president, she played center on the girls basketball team, she was a cheer leader, she was dating the best looking boy in town ("Butch" was his nickname) Vern Tomlinson and she She lived in the beautiful Albion Valley she so dearly loved.

Dad died in 1991.  They are now together in Eternity.   Love you, Mom and Dad.

House that Sam built.

Because I am building Mothers life by doing 'New Posts' each time the story time-line is backwards.

So if you are just reading this for the first time,  scroll down  

to picture of 'Verona abt two years old'.

This house was built in the early 1900's by Grandfather Samuel Perrins.  The first location was about 300 yards west of this lot.  The house  was moved to make room for a new elementary school.  Across the street, to the east was the Albion Normal Training School.
Sam and Edna's first child was not born in this house but, the next seven children were born here.  When Mother grew up in this house she said it had a screened in front and back porch.


                                                                                 

This is what the house looks like today. Updated and still lived in.  In front of the house are thirteen of thirty-five  'Perrins cousins'  on Memorial Day 2005.



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Verona Shriley Perrins

Verona abt. 2 years old

     Today, Mother would be 96 years old.  She lived to be 91 which was one of the biggest surprises of her life.  Mother was born in the house that Sam built.  Sam was her father, Edna Phippen was her mother.  5th December 1914, Albion, Cassia, Idaho, Verona Shirley Perrins was the seventh of eight children.  Her oldest sister, Ethel, was thirteen years old, brother Melvin was twelve, Gladys was nine, Estel was five, twins Kermit and Kerma were two, then her youngest sister Freda, was born when mother was five. In Mother's life history she wrote "I had a happy childhood.  My brothers and sisters spoiled me."

Verona abt. 5 years old.

          





When Mother was about 5 years old she could sing and new all the verses to "America". Her Aunt Flora and Uncle Charley  owned a mercantile store in Albion and Mother would stand on the counter and sing for the drummers (salesman) and customers and they would give her money.  It got so she wouldn't sing unless she was given money first.